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Editorial: John Lewis and Lowe can achieve mutual success

The news that Lowe London has landed the £13 million John Lewis account will doubtless have provoked as much joy in the agency's Kensington home as palpable relief at the Manhattan headquarters of its Interpublic parent.

When the £50 million Tesco account defected at the end of last
year, few people would have blamed Michael Roth, IPG's chairman, had he
put Lowe out of its misery, as all efforts to stabilise the troubled
network were negated at a stroke. Lowe, beset by client defection and
management upheaval, seemed neither equipped nor configured to face a
changing communications world.

To his credit, Roth resisted the siren calls to kill off Lowe and
dismember it. Instead, he put one of his most trusted lieutenants, Steve
Gatfield, in charge of nursing it back to health and giving it a new
raison d'etre.

Although the agency is not yet out of the woods, the John Lewis win
suggests Lowe may be finding a path through the trees. Certainly, its
faith in the power of its creativity to pull it through (its Stella
Artois "ice-skating priests" picked up a Cannes gold last month) is
still paying dividends.

Nevertheless, it has to be said that John Lewis' decision is a bold one.
Lowe's collective morale has taken a battering over the past two years
and the agency has yet to appoint a chief executive to replace the
colourful but controversial Garry Lace. However, the retailer has shown
an uncanny knack for getting things right in recent times. Its "back to
basics" approach, focusing on product and service, led to a 10 per cent
rise in last year's pre-tax profits to £252 million.

But John Lewis bosses know well enough that there is no room for
complacency. It is little more than a year ago that the group was
suffering a double-digit fall in sales and it will clearly be looking to
Lowe to help sustain its recovery.

It remains to be seen whether the win will prove a turning point for
Lowe. For the moment, it can take comfort from the fact the arrival of a
blue-chip player will make it a better magnet for talent. And John Lewis
can be assured it has an agency that will work its socks off for its new
client, not least because the appointment raises the tantalising
prospect of Tesco being replaced by the John Lewis-owned Waitrose.